True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans Are Creating a Time-Rich,Ecologically Light,Small-Scale, High-Satisfaction Economy

For cell phones, computer products, and televisions together, 373 million, or about 1.2 per American, arrived at EOL in 2007.

more, and perfect the art of self-provisioning.

True wealth can be attained by mobilizing and transforming the economies of time, creativity, community, and consumption.

Income growth is in no way integral to or even implied by the model.

In 1960 the average person consumed just a third of what he or she did in late 2008.

A second sustainability principle is multifunctionality.

the second principle of plenitude, which is to diversify from the BAU market and “self-provision,” or make, grow, or do things for oneself.

The size of the economy is, roughly, that measure times the total number of hours worked. Getting bigger doesn’t necessarily yield wealth; improving productivity does.

The national speedup was largely unexpected. Fifty years ago, the conventional wisdom was that technology would deliver us from toil. But as the country has grown richer in monetary and material terms, we’ve seen the opposite, a phenomenon I wrote about twenty years ago and called “the overworked American.”